ACCC Investigates Dominance of www.realestate.com.au
The website is controlled by the listed REA Group which is majority owned by News Limited. It has a capitalised value of $1.6 billion.
The Weekend AFR reports letters traded between the ACCC and agents asking them which companies they consider “offer similar real estate advertising services to realestate.com.au” and how necessariy it was to use different websites when selling.
It asks agents whether they’ll shift because of rising realestate.com.au advertising prices. It also asks about barriers to entry in establishing a rival product.
Fairfax owned www.domain.com.au trails www.realestate.com.au, which has seen revenue per agent rising 16 per cent a year.
“REA are unfortunately the necessary evil at the moment and the way they go about increasing subscription is unscrupulous to say the least,” the chief executive of Professionals, Western Australia and NT, David Hobbs, said.